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This summer I recreated a mid 14th century helmet with a nasal piece, this is its story.

Prologue

Our decision to attend the 2016 re-enactment of the battle of Wisby of 1361 meant I had a big deadline to come up with a whole new suit of armour. As it was my wish to partake in the battle on horseback I could no longer use my old 14th century armour of a foot soldier (which had not been updated since 2004 anyway and shamed me to hell). Luckily I was able to buy several good pieces of armour second hand (thanks Jan!), so I could focus on making the few still missing items myself.
This also gave me the opportunity to recreate a piece that was particularly special to me because I discovered it over ten years ago: a nasal of a bascinet helmet. This piece, which had been excavated at the market square of the town of Amersfoort by its archaeological service in 1991, was published in the book 'Nering en vermaak' with the subscript that its original purpose was unknown. I recognized it for what it was, contacted the archaeologists in 2005, took photos and measurements and was asked to write a small article:

When Doug Strong asked me in 2011 if he could use one of my photos in his to be published volumes on surviving plate armour 1250-1430, I photoshopped one to look good and send it to him. This photo has mysteriously made it onto pinterest a year ago, with a wrong dating (1330-1380). We know from the archaeological publication that the cattle drinking pond in which it was found was filled in around 1375 with rubbish from the market square (such as the nasal).

Left: The photo I took of the Amersfoort nasal in 2005. Right: My photoshop clean-up of that photo in 2011.

The Amersfoort nasal did not consist of steel plate of X mm, but was made out of a thick slab, slightly hollowed out at the backside. This made it very sturdy and not likely to get bend easily when hit by a weapon.

About nasals

In the late 13th century it was common practice for knights to wear an iron or steel skullcap in combination with a maille hood (which was separate or part of a maille shirt) and an all enclosing helm over these two. The helm offered good protection against lances and arrows but could be taken off to be better able to do close combat with swords and such (and be still protected by the skullcap).
This skullcap, known as bascinet in English and French and as huve/hube in Dutch and German (meaning cap), evolved in the early 14th century into a helmet that came further down the sides and back of the head. Also the maille hood was dispensed with, instead a maille curtain was attached to the bascinet. In the Holy Roman Empire armourers started experimenting with lengthening this maille curtain in a triangular shape upwards over the nose, where it could be temporarily attached to the brow of the helmet. By 1330 this flap of maille was replaced by an iron or steel plate counterpart, a nasal piece, which stayed in use as late as 1370, judging by its depiction in funerary art until that time.

Left: A Bildindex picture of the effigy of Rudolf I von Hogenberg (+1336) in Rottenburg am Neckar.
Right: A Bildindex picture of the effigy of Gunter von Schwarzburg (+1349) in Frankfurt am Main.

According to the late 19th century armour historian Boeheim this nasal piece was called a bretèche. I assume he meant in France, but he does not state a source (!!!) or further explanation in his Handbuch der Waffenkunde. A Flemish manuscript about the story of Gawain, written in 1350, does tell us the probable Dutch / German name: a nesebant (noseband).Mettien heifti tswaert verhevenEnde gheraectene weder metter hant,Ende cloofde hem helm ende nesebant,Ende sloech hem in al toten tanden,Doe trac hijt uut met beden handen,

Which I translate as:

"At once he lifted the sword
And hit (him) again with (the force of) the hand,
And cleaved his helm and noseband,
And smashed him in all unto the teeth,
Then he pulled it out with both hands,"

As you can see here, the sword cut through a helm and through a noseband. You could argue that this noseband might be a part of the helm but why then mention them separately? The logical explanation would be that the noseband belonged to a smaller helmet underneath the helm. Around this time helms were still carried on top of bascinets, as you can find in depictions in contemporary art but also in a description of the armour of men at arms in the year 1351 in the Limburger Chronicle.

"... with their crowned helms, and underneath these they had their small pointy bascinets."

The noseband has the added advantage that it helps to stabilize the helm on top, which might explain why we see the bascinet with noseband often depicted on funerary monuments of knights but not so much in depictions of foot soldiers (who would not have worn a helm on their bascinet). Taking this thought further, I would best justify using such a setup within Deventer Burgerscap if my alter ego, merchant Johan Crulling, was a mounted man at arms. Luckily he is mentioned in the Deventer accountbooks of 1366 and 1369 in lists where he and others of Deventers upper class are compensated for keeping a horse to serve the town with in times of war. They were the cavalry department of the town militia.

List of 1366 of Deventer citizens that were compensated for keeping horses and serving the town as cavalry

Reconstruction

In 2009 I made a simple small bascinet of 1.5 mm thick mild steel, but I never got round to furnishing it with a liner and maille. This was the perfect victim to install a new noseband on, which is what I did

The bascinet that I made in 2009, photo taken prior to installing the vervelles (tubes for attaching the maille).

I made the noseband out of a thick slab of steel: a bit of hammering and a lot of stock removal. Of course I kept a picture of the original noseband nearby, printed on a 1 on 1 scale, for instant reference.

Time to create the latch to keep the noseband in place on the bascinet.

Both the bascinet on the left and on the right in the above picture were a general
inspiration for this project and for the method of fastening the
noseband to the bascinet brow. The DHM bascinet probably had a visor instead of a noseband, but the latch system was likely nearly the same. I have not yet seen convincing evidence of a turning pin system. There is a bascinet in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg that seems to show this, but this pin is so flimsy that I guess it is a later addition by some collector or curator.
These days many bascinets are made way too large, because 95 % are not custom made for clients (or if they are, the producer still does a shitty job) and because of the whole current thing of 'medieval battle as a sport where you beat each other up' it is necessary to have a really thick layer of padding to prevent concussions. I wanted to keep my bascinet snug like the originals and depictions in art, and keep the ability to wear a helm over it. As you can see, in also keeping the measurements of the original noseband, the proportions of both together are still good. While if I had a too large bascinet, the noseband would have dwarfed next to it or I would have had to alter its shape. In the next photo you can see the size of my old bascinet, bought in 2001, next to the size of my new one with noseband. I could literally put the new one inside the old one.

Making the liner for the bascinet, and comparing my old and new bascinet (the latter with the new liner installed)

Left: Making a pattern for the maille liner from an old bedsheet and the pattern for the leather strap in paper. Right: The nearly finished liner which is waiting for the maille to go on top before I could see where to cut off the lower edge so they would line up.

Left: The way too large piece of maille that I had bought from India and needed to be cut short a lot, and triangles added up along the face opening of the bascinet. Right: the leather strap for attaching the maille and maille liner (that is why there are two rows of holes).

Here I am over halfway tailoring the maille. Left: Effigy of Gottfried von Arnsberg (+1372) in Cologne, whose length of maille I tried to copy. Right: Effigy of Lodewijk van Lichtervelde (+1375) in Koolskamp, whose small protruding chin and leather band running across the brow I used as inspiration.

Due to the fact that the organisation of the Battle of Wisby
event asked me to portray the Danish king Waldemar I decided to make a
crown that would go on top of the bascinet. As I still wanted to put a
great helm on top, it needed to lie flat against the helmet surface. Also as I wanted to be able to take it off, I needed to give it 'loops' that could temporarily attach it to the vervelles. To cover the two frontal loops I opted for the leather band to run across the brow, like in the Lichtervelde effigy.

The end result, while me being King Waldemar at the battle of Wisby. Photo by Vera Bos.

Phase I: Documentation

Ever since I received my copy of the book 'Der Pritzwalker Silberfund; Schmuck des späten Mittelalters' in 2010, it has been on my bucket-list to have a knife made with a silver handle-mount like the one displayed on page 31.
This mount was part of a hoard that was discovered by father and
daughter Amunde in 1858 at the parish of Burs on the Baltic island of Gotland. It had
been buried there in 1361 for safekeeping when the Danes invaded the
island. The Gotlanders were slaughtered at the battles of Mästerby and
Wisby and we can assume that the owner of the hoard was one of them,
since the treasure was never reclaimed. It is now kept in the Historiska Museet (Swedish History Museum) in Stockholm.

Masterpieces mentioned in north German goldsmith guild statutes

It is this type of knife-mount that was one of the
masterpieces that a goldsmith-journeyman had to make before he could
become a master of his trade. We find this mentioned in the goldsmith
guild statutes of several important Hanseatic towns of the fourteenth
century and even as far west as Groningen in the early sixteenth
century. The underlined parts of the text are about the knife-mount in particular and I have translated these bits for you.

Other sources and thoughts

In the Historical Museum of Szczecin in Poland (the former Hanseatic
town of Stettin) another three extant pieces of these 'byworpe' are
kept. They were part of a local hoard that was buried in the early
fifteenth century. Hugh McDonald made the following photo when he was
there in 2013, for which he has my gratitude. Two of these have the same
opening from which the knife blade can protrude as the Gotland specimen
has.

photo by Hugh McDonald (2013) of three silver knife mounts in the Historical Museum of Szczecin

Alas, I know of no extant examples of silver knife mounts from the Low Countries. There is evidence though that knife handles were indeed furnished with silver over here in the fourteenth century too. In the 1358-1359 household account of Dutch nobleman Jan van Blois there are three entries for knives mounted with
silver, for example: Item den selven een mes mit sulver beslaghen, 40 sc.
Because the medieval goldsmith guild statutes of Deventer are no longer around, it is unclear if these mounts were called 'byworpe' there as well. The fact that Deventer was situated on the border of the Low German language region and the fact that they were called 'beworp' in Groningen in 1512, gives food for thought though.

Phase II: Reconstruction

The design

In Deventer Burgerscap I portray a merchant called Johan Crullinc. He
was one of the wealthiest persons in town, at one point giving a
sizeable loan to the town council (with a nice interest rate of course).
As Deventer merchants traded intensively with the Baltic area through
the Hansa network, it seems logical that Johan might have bought a knife
with silver mounts on one of his business trips there. This also
makes for a great conversation piece at living history events today.

With this in mind I decided to have a knife reproduced, using the
Gotland extant mount. I asked a friend who works at the Historiska
Museet if he could come by detailed photos of it. In response, the
museum had the piece photographed and put them online in their collection database, for which I am very grateful. The text says + HELP MARIA -+ HELP x IHESVS. The 'collar' through which the blade should go seems to have been gilt.

photos by Historiska Museet (2015) of the knife mount from Burs, Gotland

In the north German goldsmith statutes sometimes a pair of mounts are mentioned. Therefor, I opted for a pair of mounts on the reproduction as well. I thought it easiest to have the top mount to be a copy of the extant one too, but with a cap on the end instead of the 'blade-collar'. Because of the mention of wormeshoveden / drakenkopken (wyrmheads / dragonheads) on rings in the statutes, and because of the mural paintings in Archeon being from house Drakenburg in Utrecht (one of my research projects), I chose a wyrm / dragon as cap decoration. I found a good example of such a beast in the fourteenth century finds from Wiener Neustadt in Austria.

from Hofer, N. (2014), Der Schatzfundt von Wiener Neustadt

Because the Gotland mount has a teardrop cross section and because of
the style of its letters, it seems to have belonged to a knife that
stylistically belonged to the period of 1200-1300/1350. So when making the design for the to be reproduced knife, I tried to have it look like some extant
knives from this timeframe and from the north of Germany, such as these 13th century finds from the region of Mecklenburg.

The replica

In October 2015 I contacted Anton & Ludmila of Gothic Cast and asked if they could make this knife for me and gave them the above design info. I requested a blade with iron core and steel cutting edge, for the handle to be made in walnut burl wood and to have gilding on the mounts' collar, arches and end cap.
A few weeks ago, at the Battle of Wisby reenactment at Wisby, they gave it to me in person. It was pretty special to get this knife there; a knife with a silver mount that was based on the one that had been buried nearby in Burs, because of that same war in 1361. And although the knife differs from my design (it is straight all along, instead of having the sleek curves from tip to end), I still think it looks majestic! Or should I say Mercantile? ;-)

Contrary to my previous blog-entries which were rather big, I now have a small update. I and my girlfriend Isis received our new pavilion! It is the tent that we have dreamt of since we started out in Deventer Burgerscap in 2004 and which we finally ordered with Medieval Market from Poland last autumn. A few weeks ago we put it up for the first time, underneath Huis Dever which is a c. 1375 knightly manor / tower. It is made of linen and is held aloft by two masts and guy ropes, so no hub and spoke system or other wooden support structure.

For this new tent we used a few sources, which are probably familiar to anyone who has looked into medieval tents during the past ten years. The first is a painting of 1330 in the Palazzo Publico in Siena depicting the siege of a castle. The fresco is called Guidoriccio da Fogliano all'assedio di Montemassi and is attributed to Simone Martini. There are two tents here, one with two masts and one with one mast. Both have ribbons, possibly black or blue, sewn to them in a vertical position. The second one is an extant early 17th century tent in the Historisches Museum of Basel. This has blue ribbons in a similar fashion and uses guy ropes to hold it up. The angle
of the guy ropes on the Italian wall painting suggests that these depicted
tents use the same system. Interestingly in a 1352 account of the bailiff of The Hague (residence of the counts of Holland), tents are mentioned which have repe blaeus (blue strips) sewn on them.

The Basel tent has its ropes end in crows feet and connect with the roof by means of iron hooks. We opted for the same suspension system with our new tent. It enables us to dry and store the ropes separately from the cloth, so the ropes wont accidentally rot. Also we wanted the walls to be detachable from the roof, something for which we have proof from at least the mid 15th century. In the future we will be putting nice copper finials on top of the tent, and curtains inside of it to give us some extra privacy. When the lord of Schoonhoven and Gouda, Jan van Blois, went on a crusade in the Baltic area in 1369, he ordered a load of rough linen fabric to section off a wardrobe inside his tent.

Here are some more pictures of the new tent. We think it looks marvelous!

Many people associate the first use of military drums with the late 15th, perhaps only the 16th and 17th century. In texts from this era they are often mentioned in association with the use of pike blocks. This stands to reason since when maneuvering in a tightly packed formation, each individual carrying a 4,5 to 5 meter long spear, it is really useful to have a drum to dictate a uniform marching rhythm, lest the pikes get entangled and the line or column breaks up.
This got me thinking. We know they used pikes in the 14th century, then why not a drum as well? If so, were they used by city militia? The answer is yes and yes, they did! Here you can read what sources we have for this and what this early military drum looked like.

Earliest use in warfare

The literature on the subject of the tubular drum in the middle ages states that this instrument was only introduced into Western Europe through the knights returning from their crusades in the Middle East. But there seem to be no sources that support the immediate adaptation of their use in western high medieval warfare. The earliest depiction known to me is in a French manuscript (the so-called 'Maciejowski Bible') of c. 1244-1254, where two drums are held by their rim. But can we be sure that this is proof? Perhaps not.

On the left we see the biblical army of Joshua defending the 'promised land' against an invasion force of king Amalek on the right. Amalek's army is wearing odd or old fashioned armour and shields. The illustrator probably did this to signify their foreignness. It is quite possible that the drums served the same purpose, as there seems to be a lack of contemporary textual sources linking the use of the drum to western military warfare at that time. Instead we do know that Islamic forces already used drums in battle. This suggest that the image that the illustrator wanted to appeal to was one of a Christian crusader army fighting off the infidel Muslims in Outremer, since in the 13th century the Kingdom of Jerusalem was crumbling under the pressure of the followers of Muhammad.

The first time that drums solidly feature in a martial context in Western Europe is in texts written in the early 14th century. For example, in the 1306-1307 verse Branche des royaux lignages the story is told of the battle of Mons-en-Pévèle (Pevelenberg) in French-Flanders in 1304, by eyewitness Guillaume Guiart.(Contamine, 1997) He describes 'Drums beating, horns blowing, pipes piping and trumpets braying':Tabours croistre, cors bondonner, flagieux piper et trompes braire

Somewhat later, shortly after 1346, Johannes de Beke finished his chronicle of the county of
Holland. In his description of the battle of Ane in 1227 he tells how
the lord of Goor had 'The trumpets blown and the drums beaten and then
advanced with his armed men':Alterna
vero die cum emicantibus radiis aurore iubar accresceret, dominus de
Gore beati Martini vexillifer in clangore tubarum et stridore tympanorum
cum electis antecessit armigeris

Interestingly the 'Quedam
Narracio' manuscript, written before the end of 1233, gives a detailed
account of the battle of Ane of 1227 as well, but does not mention any such drums! (thanks for
looking that up Henk 't Jong). This suggests that De Beke must have made up their presence at Ane, based on his own knowledge of the drums being used in contemporary warfare in the first half of the fourteenth century.

The piper / the drummer

The drum was not only used in actual warfare but also with mock warfare. In the lawbook of the German town of Goslar of c. 1350 it is stated that whenever a drum was beaten at a tournament and someone rode down the piper (on foot or on horse) and hurt him, he was not to be brought to court if he would apologize (and compensate the victim) and state that it happened by accident.
The fact that the text is about drums being beaten but a piper being run down may seem strange. This can be explained by the fact that a piper would often not only play the flute but also beat a snare drum at the same time, they were more all round musicians. When in 1372 the ensemble of three pipers of lord Jan van Blois is described, the first and third are called pipers but the second one is named a bongenaer, a drummer. Inversely, in 1362 a drummer 'piped' at a feast for Jan as well. There is a good contemporary depiction of a piper (or drummer) combining the flute and drum on one of the statues in the Beverly Minster in England (c. 1330-1350). The drum would have a rope or leather belt with which it could be
fastened around the neck, shoulder or to the upper or lower arm, so that the musician retained the use of both his hands.

When only playing the drum, the drummer could be using one stick or two sticks to beat his instrument. This we find depicted for example in the 'Gravenkapel' in Kortrijk (1370-1374), on the choir-stalls of the Dom of Erfurt (c. 1330-1350) and on a console from the city hall of Bruges (1376-1379). As you can see here (and on all other effigies of 14th century
drums), this drum was tubular, had a snare and was rather flat (as opposed to the smaller kettle-shaped naker drums). In 1364 Jan van Blois' drummer received a 'white oxen hide' to use as drum skin. The really deep drum, which we
nowadays regard as the typical marching drum, seems to have been a
Swiss / Italian development of the period 1470-1500, so a hundred years later.

Civic pipers @ war

While we know noble folk employed their own musicians, what about cities? The piper of Goslar of c. 1350 may
very well have been one that was also hired by the town magistrate.
In fact, from the mid 14th century onward, civic ensembles of musicians ('Stadspijpers' / 'Stadtpfeifer')
blossomed in many towns in the Holy Roman Empire. For example Hamburg and Dortmund had
ensembles of three players in 1350 and 1363. While Osnabrück had a two
player ensemble in 1358, just like Wesel and Munich in 1360 and
Frankfurt in 1361. (Polk, 1987)

In Deventer in 1368 Roelviken den Piper was paid to travel to Dordrecht and The Hague in the county of Holland
to deliver letters to two noblemen and receive one from the count.
In 1369 the same Roelve den Piper seems to have been given a more
permanent position on the city's payroll because he was given 4 ells of
broadcloth (for clothing), while a year later a piper is called the
town's herald (probably Roelve) and he and his men are given broadcloth
again. In 1372 we find that the piper swore his service to the city's aldermen. In 1380 the Deventer magistrate not only issued broadcloth to its
two pipers but also to a drummer, a 'bongenaar'.

While the pipers in Deventer may only have been institutionalized as a civic ensemble in 1369, they were already sporadically employed earlier by the city, to deliver messages to foreign lords, play at feasts but also to accompany military campaigns. In 1344 in a list of expenses for a campaign to Ommen, Rutger Menre is paid for the horses he had procured for the pipers to ride there. In the 1361 city accountbook Ludiken the piper was paid for his presence at the siege of the castle Voorst near Zwolle. And in 1368 two pipers traveled with the city militia to attack a local lord. Interestingly we are told the army they accompanied consisted of 300 people. When from 1369 onward the pipers are on the fixed payroll of the city, we find they are no longer separately compensated for their serving on campaigns. This stands to reason since this would have been part of their job description.

1368Tween pipeners die mit onser stad uyt ghetrect waren LikeDeventer also other cities employed pipers to go on campaign. For example Hamburg sent four pipers to the Hanseatic war with the Danish king in 1362, Wesel had them at an expedition in 1365 and Basel hired pipers in 1374 for an attack on Belfort.

We even have visual evidence of the practice of pipers going on campaign with their city militia. In the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena a mural painting by Lippo Vanni of 1364 depicts the victory of the Sienese troops at Val di Chiana in 1363. In front of the crossbow troops walk three pipers, playing their flutes and beating their drums. They are marching straight into battle behind their cavalry and trumpetters. In the early fifteenth century chronicle of Giovanni Sercambi an army is depicted with a drummer up front, holding his drum in a very similar way. Sadly we only have a modern drawing of this miniature. Both these groups of pipers do not seem to be wearing armour, but in other instances they might have. For example when nobleman Jan
van Blois went on a crusade in the Baltic area in 1369 he had two sets
of armour rented for his piper and his drummer. Likewise did the duke Albrecht of Bavaria have his trumpetters wear armour at the battle of Kuinre in 1396.

The drum is going to the battle of Wisby!

With the above sources in mind, we decided to buy a replica 14th century
snare drum to use for our portrayal of the Deventer city militia of c.
1370. Naturally we need to make the future drummer also the city's herald
at some point. ;-) In February we had a big training with our new pike
shafts and drum, to prepare for our participation in the Battle of Wisby
event in August 2016. It will be a blast.

This year in August our group Deventer Burgerscap will attend the Battle of Wisby event in Sweden, reenacting the famous battle that took place in front of the city walls in 1361. We have chosen this epic event to try and create a proper pike block as it might have looked around 1360-1370. We are gathering a great bunch of people to make this adventure happen, by now we will not only have Dutch such as the small group Baljuw van Heuclum in our ranks but also Germans such as More Majorum and the Blidenbauers and next to that even one or two Swedes. Therefore we need to have at least 20 pikes (but the more the merrier!).
As the text sources and extant pikes indicate that their average length was between 4,5 and 5 meters and their width around 30-35 mm, we bought ash pikeshafts of 30 mm thick and 5 meters in length. The weight of such a shaft is 2474 grams, which is similar to the 5 pounds that Müller-Hickler found in the original ones in the early 20th century. Here is a photo of me holding one of the new shafts, so you can compare it to the 1378 pikemen fresco from Padua (see the earlier blogpost on pikes). Of course the perspectives are somewhat different which influences how long they seem. At the least it is hard to call the Paduan sticks mere spears!

We had great fun playing around with these pikeshafts last Saturday at a training organised by Foundation HEI, where we were first drilled by the sergeant and corporal of the early 17th century living history group MARS and then had the knights of HEI (of which I am one) galop around and through our ranks. It was also a moment for a few of us to try out some of our new mid-late 14th century gear. For me personally it was to see how the new lendenier (a girdle to suspend leg armour), leg armour and breastplate were working, while Marc was testing his new pair of plates and limb armour. Next time I hope to have finished my haubergeon, so I can test my arm harness. The aim is to go to Wisby with two mounted men-at-arms as well!

The next step will be to taper the shafts, at least at their tops, impregnate them, then make the pikeheads and lastly nail them on the shafts. We have decided to forge the pikeheads with the
square cross section, because: 1. they are probably easier to make, 2. they will be more easy to transport on the roof of a car in a big tube, 3. they can be more elegantly turned into versions that are safe to do reenactment battles with: The requirement for these is that they have a rounded point of at least 8 mm thick. A major source of inspiration for our reconstructions are these extant 15th-16th century pikes that originally came from the arsenal of Luzern in Switzerland but were sold to someone in 2007 who then resold them.